Lukashenko, Putin agreed to settle all problematic issues by 25th anniversary of Union State Treaty
By the 25th anniversary of the Treaty on the Creation of the Union State, all problematic issues of integration should be settled: both in the scope of activities of the two countries’ security councils and on government issues – as stated by President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko during a meeting on international issues
photo: www.president.gov.by
Starting the conversation, the Head of State noted, “The international agenda remains extremely tense. The schedule of international meetings, as we have seen since the last month, is quite busy. All this requires the utmost concentration on past and future events.”
The President outlined the essence of his requirements, “Speaking briefly, why I convened this meeting, I must frankly say that sometimes we make very correct decisions when visiting certain states. We draw prospects and plans. However, then it turns out that we either don’t want to, or – as usually happens – we are too lazy to do what we’ve agreed on. Thus, it appears to be some semi-tourist trips.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko has clearly divided the areas of responsibility, “Let’s agree that the role of the President, figuratively speaking, is to open a window in some direction, creating a basis, a foundation for future agreements between members of the Government and the Prime Minister. And already the Government – primarily led by the Foreign Ministry and under the control of the President Administration – must implement certain agreements. Not to mention the agreements of the members of the Government reached during your trips.”
“There should be no tourist trips. No tourism! There must be a result. We need to synchronise our watches today and think over our further steps for the near future to implement the agreements that have been reached, as I said, as a result of certain visits to individual countries,” the Head of State summed up.
The President focused on some of the results of his visit to Russia. According to him, mutual understanding has been achieved on all issues that the governments could not solve. This concerns the new formula for oil price, prepayment for oil supplies, and settlement of refunds from the recycling fee for cars. And this is despite the fact that all strategic and tactical issues have been settled earlier at the level of the presidents.
“We’ve discussed all these issues with President Putin. Moreover, we’ve agreed that today or tomorrow – depending on how you prepare it – I will send him a letter outlining the essence of these three issues. Speaking about the prepayment, Rosneft mainly supplies oil to us, so he even protested, saying that ‘we have worked all our lives without prepayment, and we will be able to continue working in this way’. As far as the other two questions are concerned (I told him that we would not overtake the most important issues with these), I will send a letter so that decisions can be made,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
During the meetings of the leaders of Belarus and Russia, security issues have been also tackled.
“These are the central issues at any meeting and talks. They were closed in nature, and I don’t see any point in involving the Government. All law enforcement agencies and ministers, the foreign ministries are involved in certain issues. That’s the essence of these negotiations,” the Head of State noted.
“Mutual understanding has been found on all issues. There is no rejection. You just need to work out some kind of tactics, not dealing with tourism, but dealing with an assertive negotiation tactic with Russian Prime Minister Mishustin,” the President stressed once again.
[to be updated]
